NEW I.R.A. STANCE ON ARMS IS HAILED AS BREAKTHROUGH

By WARREN HOGE

Published: August 7, 2001

LONDON, Aug. 6—
The Irish Republican Army has agreed to a method of destroying its arsenal that Britain and Ireland hailed today as the long-sought breakthrough needed to push forward the stalled Northern Ireland peace accord.

Words like ''significant'' and ''historic'' were used to describe the development by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, who are struggling to save the three-year-old agreement from collapse.

But Protestant leaders in the embattled province expressed skepticism, welcoming the move but questioning whether an announcement of intent rather than actual weapons destruction would break the deadlock.

The I.R.A. plan was announced today by the international commission responsible for the disarming of paramilitary forces in Northern Ireland. Details of what the I.R.A. had agreed to were not disclosed, and the crucial matter of when actual disarmament might begin was left unaddressed.

However, the commission chairman, Gen. John de Chastelain of Canada, said the proposals had been accepted by the panel as ones that would ''put I.R.A. arms completely and verifiably beyond use.''

The announcement of the I.R.A. plan came just hours before Northern Ireland's political parties were to decide whether to accept a British-Irish package of measures given them last Wednesday in an effort to avoid the shutdown of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The legislature is the centerpiece of a government set up in Belfast by the April 1998 peace agreement that seeks to end decades of violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics by apportioning political power between them.

The Ulster Unionists, the province's largest party, had said they would no longer take part in the assembly if the I.R.A. did not begin disarming. It was the protest resignation last month of the party's leader, David Trimble, as the assembly's first minister that set off the current scramble to break the arms impasse.

Protestant distrust of the commitment of the I.R.A. to the peace effort, and that of its political wing, Sinn Fein, has grown, fueled largely by the guerrilla group's refusal to disarm and by a perception among Protestants that Catholics have gained more from the negotiations than they have.

Tonight, Mr. Trimble emerged from a two-hour meeting of officers of his party in Belfast to say that they would need more time to decide whether the new I.R.A. stance on decommissioning, as disarmament is called in Northern Ireland, would change their attitude.

''In the absence of actual decommissioning, then there is nothing at present for Ulster Unionists to respond to,'' he said.

Other parties said they too would ignore today's deadline, and neither the British nor Irish governments objected, effectively postponing action on their package of measures until later this week.

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Blair said, ''We hoped that people would respond today, but people have said they want more time, so we will wait.''

Prime Minister Ahern urged the Ulster Unionists to accept the development as the elusive breakthrough they had been seeking. ''People should see the historic significance rather than trying to see difficulties in it,'' he said.

He held out the possibility that actual disarmament might follow soon. ''Hopefully over the next number of days, perhaps the outstanding issue of the commencement of that process, hopefully, will also move on,'' he told RTE Radio in Dublin.

From Mexico, where he and his family are on holiday, Mr. Blair sent word that in his view ''this is an important step forward which I warmly welcome and on which I hope we can build rapidly.''

His Northern Ireland secretary, John Reid, said, ''I believe it provides the basis and potential for rapidly resolving the arms issue.''

The arms issue has been a continual stumbling block in the Northern Ireland peace negotiations, and in the three years since the accord was reached there has been a series of crisis talks to try to solve it. Since the de Chastelain commission was created in 1997, it has waited in vain for the I.R.A. and Protestant guerrilla groups to begin scrapping weapons under its supervision.

The announcement today came after meetings between the commission and a representative of the I.R.A. A commission spokesman would not elaborate on the I.R.A. plan other than to say that it satisfied demands that the method pose ''no risk to the public and avoid the possibility of misappropriation by others.''

The I.R.A. has maintained a cease-fire for four years, but disaffected members of the organization have formed new dissident groups like the Real I.R.A. that have planted bombs and launched mortar attacks to try to disrupt the peace effort. The ''misappropriation'' concern aims at keeping the renegades from gaining access to I.R.A. bunkers whose locations they know.

Early Friday, in what was the seventh such incident in London in the last 18 months, the Real I.R.A. set off a car bomb, injuring 11 people and destroying shops and buildings in Ealing Broadway, a busy West London neighborhood. Among those condemning it was Sinn Fein, which has an active interest in keeping the powers-sharing government alive.